AUSTIN, Texas (5/24/06) ? Nineteen North Texas athletes will have a shot at qualifying for nationals beginning this Friday at the NCAA Midwest Regional Track & Field meet in Austin, Texas.

AUSTIN, Texas (5/24/06) Nineteen North Texas athletes will have a shot at qualifying for nationals beginning this Friday at the NCAA Midwest Regional Track & Field meet in Austin, Texas.

Despite a nagging foot injury, Brandi Stanfield is expected to compete in the triple jump on Saturday. The indoor all-American injured her foot competing in the long jump at the Sun Belt Outdoor Championships earlier this month, but has practiced well all week and says she is ready for competition.

Stanfield owns the nation’s fourth best triple jump mark of the 2006 outdoor season. The freshman is also listed as an alternate for the 4x100-meter relay team.

North Texas has quietly become a shot put powerhouse over the last few seasons. Behind junior Heather Wood and senior CijiBrooks, the Mean Green has set nine of the 10 best marks in school history over the past two years.

Wood, the Sun Belt Conference champion, holds claim to six of those throws, including the school record which sets at 48-feet-4-inches. Brooks was the Sun Belt runner-up, and also owns three of the top-10 marks. The duo will represent the Mean Green at the NCAA Midwest Regional meet this weekend.

North Texas is sending 19 athletes to this year’s regional meet, just short of last season’s school record 21. At the 2005 regional meet, sprinter Kory Williams punched his ticket to the National Track and Field Championships, nearly breaking the school 400-meter hurdles record in the finals.

The senior finished thirteen-tenths of a second off the school record with a time of 51.11, and his fifth place finish insured him a spot in the National Championships in Sacramento, Ca. Williams was the first male Mean Green hurdler to qualify for the national meet and the first male overall since Detrion Woodson advanced to the 100-meter dash national semi-finals in 2001.